Prologue: Toward a New Enlightenment
Part I. From Bounded to Relational Being
1: Bounded Being
2: In the Beginning is the Relationship
3: The Relational Self
4: The Body as Relationship: Emotion, Pleasure and Pain
Part II. Relational Being in Everyday Life
5: Multi-being and the Adventure of Everyday Life
6: Bonds, Barricades, and Beyond
Part III. Relational Being in Practice
7: Knowledge as Co-Creation
8: Education in a Relational Key
9: Therapy as Relational Recovery
10: Organizing: The Precarious Balance
Part IV. From the Moral to the Sacred
11: Beyond Moral Pluralism
12: All Our Relations, Approaching the Sacred
Epilogue: The Coming of Relational Consciousness
Index
Winner of the Media Ecology Association's 2010 Erving Goffman Award
for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Social
Interaction!
Winner of the 2009 PROSE award in Psychology!
More than 40 PROSE Awards, including the top prize, the R.R.
Hawkins Award, were presented on February 4, 2010, at a special
Awards Luncheon during the PSP Annual Conference at the Renaissance
Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. A complete list of all winners
can be found on the PROSE Awards website at:
http://www.proseawards.com/docs/2009-PROSE-Winners-Press-Release.doc.
Presented since 1976, the 2009 PROSE Awards received a
record-breaking 441 entries--more than ever before in its 34-year
history-- from more than 60 professional and scholarly publishers
across the country.
"A marvelously likeable book, Relational Being faces us with an
urgent and profound challenge. Jettisoning individualism entirely,
Gergen demonstrates the sense and virtue of understanding all
aspects of human reality through the lens of relationship. This
argument for a new Enlightenment is a brave and passionate tour de
force from one of our finest social scientists."--Benjamin Bradley,
Chair, Psychology and Director, CSU Degree Initiative, Charles
Sturt University
"Relational Being is a milestone on the road toward the Next
Enlightenment-- an enlightenment that re-constructs "the bounded
self" with an understanding of the primacy of relational being.
There is not a "sounding" in this towering manifesto that leaves
things as they are. Once we acknowledge that we are interwoven
threads in the intricate tapestry of relational process-- in which
our destiny is among us as opposed to within-- everything changes.
If
human connection can become as real to us as the traditional sense
of individual separation, then our globally intimate future has a
chance-- there is that much at stake in this forward-looking,
pragmatic and
inspirational Kenneth Gergen classic!"--David Cooperrider,
Fairmount Minerals Professor of Social Entrepreneurship,
Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve
University
"This is a powerful, richly nuanced, evocative work; a stunning and
brilliantly innovative pedagogical intervention. It provides ground
zero-- the starting place for the next generation of theorists.
Relational Being is a stunning accomplishment by one of America's
major social theorists, and a visionary work." --Norman K. Denzin,
Professor of Sociology, Cinema Studies, and Interpretive Theory,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
"A must-read for scholars, practitioners and the general public,
this book gives promise and hope to our planet and our future
well-being." --Harlene Anderson, Houston Galveston Institute
"Ken Gergen, the most original and insightful social psychologist
of my generation, offers a hopeful and fresh framework for scholars
and practitioners seeking a meaningful, useful, and creative
approach to the cultural, political, personal, and professional
struggles of our time. Professor Gergen writes with grace,
compassion, and clarity and the story he tells is extraordinarily
important and profound." --Arthur P. Bochner, Distinguinshed
University Professor
of Communication, University of South Florida
"...Relational Being promises to be a significant and useful
contribution to psychological literature."--PsycCRITIQUES
"Simply put, Gergen asks: If this is the sense of self that is
afforded, then what does this mean for the lives we live, and the
lives we might aspire to live? Relational Being responds to this
(impossible) question. The book presents a contemporary and
inspiring response to questions about being, spirituality, and the
practices and relations of everyday life. Gergen's approach avoids
moralistic undertones and dense theorizing to provide a simple
philosophy for everyday, postmodern life." -- International Journal
of Communication
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